Yaron Brook (Hebrew: ירון ברוק; born May 23, 1961[1]) is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, writer, and public intellectual. He is an Objectivist, a former finance professor at Santa Clara University,[2] and the current chairman of the board at the Ayn Rand Institute, where he was executive director from 2000 to 2017. He is also the co-founder of BHZ Capital Management LP.[3]
Brook is co-author, with Don Watkins, of the book Equal is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality.[4] “What we care about is whether individuals are able to rise by merit—and the fact is that many of the policies the inequality critics say will improve mobility actually make rising by merit much harder,” they argue in the book.[5]
Brook supports the work of Alex Epstein (Author of Fossil Future and The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels) and his approach to climate change and human flourishing.[6] Brook argues that free markets and capitalism have the potential to produce real solutions to the negative impacts of a changing climate[7] and that the ESG movement and net zero government policies will have a disastrous impact on human beings.[8]
Brook's activism has been described as "anti-progressive" and he has been criticized by activists for targeting Black Lives Matter and feminist activists. In 2018, a public event featuring Brook and Carl Benjamin as speakers was protested by Antifa activists.[9] Brook has argued that Islamic ideology is contrary to the moral values of contemporary Western societies.[10]
In 1998, he co-founded BH Equity Research with Robert Hendershott. BH Equity Management was a financial advisory firm. In 2019, BH Equity dissolved and BHZ Capital Management LP became the new entity.[13]
Brook became an associate of leading Objectivist intellectuals, such as philosopher Leonard Peikoff, and in 1994, he co-founded Lyceum International, a company that organized Objectivist conferences and offered distance-learning courses. In 2000, he left Santa Clara University to succeed Michael Berliner as President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, which was then located in Marina del Rey, California. In 2002, ARI relocated to Irvine, California.[14]
Brook speaks and debates at numerous American universities, delivering seminars for businesses and corporations in the United States and abroad, and writing opinion editorials for leading newspapers and websites. Speaking venues include conferences, professional organizations, and community groups. His subjects span a wide range of current events and philosophical issues, including the causes of the financial crisis, the morality of capitalism, and ending the growth of the state, each discussed with Objectivism at its foundation. In recent years, he has spoken to audiences throughout the world, including those in China, Australia, Brazil,[15] Argentina,[16] Greece,[17] Iceland, Bulgaria, Israel,[18] Guatemala,[19] and England.[20]
Brook's articles have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor's Business Daily, and many other publications. A frequent guest on a variety of radio and national television programs, he is the co-author of Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea and Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government, and contributing author of Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism.[citation needed] His newest book is In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance, co-authored with Don Watkins.[21]
On January 19, 2021, Brook, along with Robert Hendershott and Don Watkins,[22] launched Ingenuism[23] on Substack.[24] To introduce themselves, the title of their first post was, "Progress at the speed of thought".[25]
On January 7, 2015, the day of the Charlie Hebdo shooting,[26] Brook made his first-ever podcast and premiered The Yaron Brook Show.[27] As of June 2022, sixteen podcasts have been produced for this series.[28]
Events
On September 27, 2017, at the Yale Student Chapter of The Federalist Society, Brook participated in an event named, "Income Inequality: Is It Fair or Unfair?".[29]
Brook promotes the Objectivist ethical position that rational selfishness[30] is a moral virtue and that altruism[31] is evil. Yaron Lectures: The Morality of Selfishness a talk for Cheongshim International Academy[32] and Yaron Debates: Selfishness is a Virtue, Brook vs Epstein; Moderated by Judge Napolitano[33] are two recent presentations of this ethical position.
Politics and economics
Brook is an outspoken proponent of laissez-fairecapitalism. In appearances on CNBC[34] and several articles[35] and speeches, he has defended the rights of corporations and businessmen and upheld the virtues of capitalism. In a January 7, 2007, editorial in USA Today, he defended multimillion-dollar CEO pay packages against the attempt by the government to regulate them.[36] In a 2010 interview, Brook called the efforts of Democrats to raise taxes on multi-millionaires "totally immoral." He criticized George W. Bush for signing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which regulates corporate accounting practices.[37] He has also argued that antitrust laws are "unjust and make no sense ethically or economically."[38]
On gun rights, Brook has stated, "The government certainly has a role in regulating ownership of weapons", but he states that it is a "complex" issue to do with the philosophy of law. He is inclined to draw the line of prohibition between "offensive" weapons, such as tanks and weapons of mass destruction, and "defensive" weapons.[39]
In interviews and through his writings and podcasts, he criticized the Republican Party and the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations for not abiding by free market principles and for enabling excessive government involvement in the economy.[40]
Brook has taught financial courses dealing with topics such as the Financial Crisis and[41] corporations.[42]
Foreign policy
Brook applies Objectivist moral philosophy to the question of American foreign policy, particularly on the Middle East. He advocates an American foreign policy of rational self-interest that would serve only to protect the rights of Americans, as opposed to any form of government monetary aid, state-building, or spreading democracy.[43] He has criticized the foreign policy of Ron Paul and other libertarians.[44]
He advocates the withdrawal of US troops from Europe, and US withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations, calling the latter "one of the most immoral institutions ever created by man". He is ambivalent about the World Trade Organization.[45]
Brook called for an embargo on North Korea.[46] Brook has taught foreign policy courses dealing with topics such as the history of the Middle East.[47]
Islamic terrorism
Brook argues that Islamic terrorists initiated a war against the West because they hate its culture, wealth, love of life, and global influence,[48] and that they attack Israel because of the influence Western culture has had on it.[43] He rejects the idea that Islamic terrorists attack Western nations because they support Israel or because of poverty or retaliation.[43] Brook claims that the West is not at war with terrorism but the ideology of Islamic totalitarianism. He repeatedly says that just like in World War II, the US was at war against not Japanese kamikaze pilots or German tanks but the ideas of Nazism and Japanese imperialism.[49][50] Brook claims that Islamic totalitarians are Muslims who wish to dictate every part of life from the teachings of Islam, taken to its logical extreme.[50] He believes that Islamic totalitarians want to organize their governments according to Islam and that they wish to spread a global Islamic government across the world, sometimes by using legitimate means but mainly by using physical force, terrorism.[50]
Morality of war
Brook has laid out a unique theory of the morality of war,[51][52] based on the ideas of Ayn Rand [53] and Leonard Peikoff.[54]
Israel
Brook considers Israel to be a morally good nation because its Western-style government protects the rights of its citizens, Arab and Jewish alike, vastly more than neighboring countries.[55][56] On Zionism, Brook argued that "Zionism fused a valid concern—self-preservation amid a storm of hostility—with a toxic premise: ethnically based collectivism and religion."[57]
Brook advocates supporting Israel, which he sees as a Western ally against Islamic terrorism.[58] Brook disagrees with many of Israel's policies, including its collectivist and religious influences, and its “self-sacrificial” foreign policy of giving its enemies land, money, and other goods.[55][59]
Watkins, Don; Brook, Yaron (March 29, 2016). Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality (Hardcover ed.). St. Martin's Press. p. 272. ISBN978-1250084446.
Brook, Yaron; Watkins, Don (September 18, 2012). Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government (Hardcover ed.). St. Martin's Press. p. 272. ISBN978-0230341692.
Ghate, Debi (April 5, 2011). Why Businessmen Need Philosophy: The Capitalist's Guide to the Ideas Behind Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (Paperback ed.). Berkley. p. 336. ISBN9780451232694.
Thompson, C. Bradley; Brook, Yaron (May 30, 2010). NEOCONSERVATISM: An Obituary for an Idea (Hardcover ed.). Routledge. p. 256. ISBN978-1594518317.
Journo, Elan (September 29, 2009). Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism (Hardcover ed.). Lexington Books. p. 268. ISBN978-0739135402.
Other
Corporate governance: a study of director liability, firm performance and shareholder wealth, University of Texas, Austin, 1994 [thesis]
^Epstein, Alex; Brook, Yaron (October 22, 2002). "Paralyzing America's Producers". Ayn Rand Institute. Archived from the original on May 25, 2011. Retrieved October 2, 2009.
^Brook, Yaron (January 7, 2007). "Pay is company's prerogative". USA Today. p. 19A. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
^Arfa, Orit (July 12, 2007). "'You don't fight a tactic'". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on February 13, 2016. Retrieved January 11, 2016.
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